Well, just to give us a little context of where we've been in Ephesians chapter 6, let me just begin reading in verse 10. And we're going to be focusing our hearts this morning on verse 18. Finally, be strong in the Lord, and in the strength of his might. Put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the schemes of the devil. For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over the present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places. Therefore, take up the whole armor of God, that you may be able to withstand in the evening, and having done all, to stand firm. Stand therefore, having fastened on the belt of truth, and having put on the breastplate of righteousness, And as shoes for your feet, having put on the readiness given by the gospel of peace. In all circumstances, take up the shield of faith with which you can extinguish all the flaming darts of the evil one. And take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the spirit, which is the word of God, praying at all times in the spirit with all prayer and supplication. Stop there. It was quite a few years ago, Mary and I had the joy of being able to go over to Scotland to preach and to visit some of the churches over there. When we were in Edinburgh, we went to a church that was a great church, where I'm going to share in a minute where there's great history. But right in the middle of the city and up high on a hill, which is kind of a volcanic rock, is the huge castle of Edinburgh. And it oversees the whole city. It was a fortress for many years after it served as a castle. It was made in 1512 under James IV. And inside that castle is something called the Great Hall, and that's exactly what you can imagine it would be. A big, long hall, beautiful wood ceiling. All along the wall is dark paneling. And on the dark paneling, what you see is just an array of weapons that come out of the Middle Ages, swords and shields and clubs, the big clubs on the wall. And at the very end of the long hall is a big fireplace that covers pretty much the whole end wall. And on either side of the fireplace, There are two suits of armor on one side and two suits of armor on the other side. And each one of the suits of armor standing up in attention, they have a 10-foot lance in their hand. Now, as you look at those suits of armor, this is what they wore back in medieval days during times of war. They had the helmet. They had the breastplate. They have their legs covered, their arms are covered, and a suit of armor standing there. But there's something missing. They're hollow inside. There's nothing inside of them. They're an external shell to fight a war that no one can fight because there's no life and no power in each one of those suits of armor. They're dead relics of antiquity. The best picture of the spiritual armor of God minus what we're going to see today. In other words, if you take everything up to what we said today, and we leave out verse 18, what you have are suits of armor without power and without life in them. And you can see we can put on the spiritual armor of God from head to toe, and do so in a mechanical way, and do so in a way that's only external in our Christian life. You say, well, what's lacking? Life. What's lacking? Power. And we're gonna see where that comes from today in verse 18. You know, we can be like Goliath was, remember? Nine feet tall. He had all of his armor. His armor says it weighs 100 pounds. And he was fighting against a little young lad that had a slingshot. But he was powerless against that young lad because all he had was the armor. He had the size. He didn't have the power of God for there to be victory and he was slain. The same is true in the spiritual armor as well that God has given us in Ephesians chapter 6. We've looked at the battle gear, we've looked at the armor that God has given us. And what do you have if you have all the armor on but you don't have the life and the power of God in you? You have a cold suit of spiritual armor that leaves you vulnerable to the attacks of the enemy. Let me give you a couple examples. Let's take a couple of the pieces of armor that we've already looked at. Having your loins girded up or having put on the belt of truth. Remember, we saw that a few weeks ago. We saw that the belt of truth was a knowledge of sound doctrine. So let's say you do that. Let's say you take out your theology books, and you're studying doctrine, and you know, you've got pretty well memorized a good systematic theology in your head. You're pretty well grounded in truth. So what you have is a good knowledge of the Bible, a good knowledge of the fundamental doctrines. So you're belting up your waist with truth. But let me ask you this. What do you have? if you have all the knowledge of doctrine, and you have truth, but you don't have the power of God behind it? And the answer simply is nothing. What you have is dead orthodoxy. You have dead orthodoxy, your head's all swelled up, you know truth, but you have no power to implement, to live out that truth in your Christian life. Great mind, puffed up with pride, and wherever there's pride, soon comes the fall. See, sound doctrine is not enough. It's not enough just to put on that part of the armor. You can't fight with words and just ideas that you have without the power of God behind them. In fact, you could have all the theology in your head, and the enemy is attacking you left and right, and the fiery darts are coming in and hitting you, and as they do, you fall and defeat. Let me give you a good illustration. Many of you have read about it recently. And that is a well-known Canadian-American apologist who recently passed away last year. This is an apologist, well-known. He was on our radio station over at Trinity. 40 years he served the Lord by being an apologist around the world and had written over 30 books. And then he died. And then came out the secrets about his life. Much of that 40 years of ministry was tied up in bondage to sexual sin. And what you found is a lifelong secret. I'm sure the fiery darts were coming at him, and they were just knocking him down left and right. And so he had all the head knowledge. He had all the doctrines. He could go to all the big universities. He could stand up and debate all the great thinkers of our day and sound so victorious. But inside of his heart, it was a hollow suit. And inside the suit was nothing, was not power, but death, not life. And what's true of individual Christians can also be true of churches. You can have churches that just pride themselves in their doctrine and how sound they are in their doctrine and yet they don't have life and they don't have power behind it. And that leads to pride and defeat ultimately. It leads to dead orthodoxy. So it is with each and every piece of the armor you put on. It's the same thing. If it doesn't have the power of God behind it, it falls short. You're like the armored suits in the castle. I'll give you one more example. Take your feet shot with the gospel of peace. So you're going to be putting your sandals on to go out preach the gospel of peace. You're going to go forth without power of God. Is there anyone that you know of, or have you ever gone out into the world to share Christ with someone without any power behind it? You're just doing it out of duty, out of a rote routine. And it wasn't a heartfelt desire to go out and share Christ with those that come into your life. You can go out and you can even be evangelistic. and do so without the power of God. It's done all the time. I mean, you try and convince sinners that they need Christ, or you go out on a door-knocking ministry of knocking on all the doors and you're on the block around the church, and you're doing so without the regenerating power of Almighty God behind you, it's just another work. Even though it's a good work, it's just another work. In fact, as we saw, it really can't be done unless there's a miracle that must take place. What must there be for the miracle? And that is the power of God. Now, you see this graphically as you look at the end of Matthew 28 and the beginning of Acts chapter 1. And you try and put those two teachings of Christ together. Because Matthew 28, Matthew ends with what we know as the Great Commission. Go, right? Go into the four corners of the world and preach the gospel of Jesus Christ. And now you come to Acts chapter one, historically speaking, and now you're beginning to see the work of the church. And now they've been given this mission to go out into the whole world and to preach the gospel of Jesus Christ. And then what happens in Matthew chapter, Acts chapter one? Jesus, before the ascension, says, but wait a minute. Stop, don't go anywhere. But Jesus, Matthew 28, you told us to do what? To go. We're ready to go. He said, no, you're not. They didn't need more teaching. They had the gospel. They knew what they were supposed to preach. In fact, in verse four, it says, and while staying with them, Christ ordered them not to depart from Jerusalem, but to wait for the promise of the Father. Wait. But you will receive power with the Holy Spirit that has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, and the end of the earth." So wait, pray, and keep praying until there is power, and then he is going to say go. You know what happens in Acts 2, the explosion of Pentecost where the Spirit of God comes, the power from on high came. Their prayer was answered and out they go. Verse 14, all these were with one accord, were devoting themselves to prayer together with the women and Mary, the mother of Jesus and his brothers. They're all gathered together in this prayer meeting. asking God, asking for the Spirit of God to provide the power to do what God commanded them to do back in Matthew 28. And of course you can go through any of the other pieces of the armor and when you see without power behind it, all you have is basically a shell, a defensive shell, like we saw in Scotland. You know, the sword of the spirits says that we are to take those precise scriptural verses, remember we saw that, I think it was last time, you take it out offensively and use that in doing battle with the evil one. Which means you need to know scripture, you need to be one with the word of God, so you can pick up the very passage of scripture that are dealing perhaps in the area you're being tempted, so that you can stand the fiery darts of the wicked one. Now that is exactly what Christ did. Remember we saw that he was quoting from Deuteronomy left and right as he was doing sword work with the devil in the wilderness. Where did the power of Christ come from? Well you say he is God, right? So he already had the power. But he is also a man. He is the God man. And where did Christ spend much of his earthly ministry? It was in prayer. He prayed. He quoted scripture to resist the temptation of the wicked one, but then he prayed, too, as well. We know he prayed for the power to accomplish all the Father had given him to do. He healed, he raised the dead, he did spiritual warfare against the devil. To stand victorious, he needed the power from on high, from his Father, from the Spirit of God, to help him, strengthen him during his earthly ministry. And what did he do? He continually bowed to God the Father in prayer. And so you find him throughout the New Testament praying what? Praying in the morning, praying in the evening, praying all night. We line Christ's prayer life up with ours. I mean, he was the son of God. I mean, after all, he didn't even need to pray. How much more should we pray, being finite redeemed creatures that we are, and seeking to remain standing in the spiritual battle that God's put us in? I'll say this, without God, without his power, without his enabling, without his life-giving, everything that we saw so far by way of spiritual armor is going to be of no effect in our Christian life. Jeremiah 33 says, call to me and I will answer you and tell you great and hidden things that you have not known. So even after taking up the full armor of God, we must do one more thing to remain standing. That's what we're going to look at today in verse 18. You're putting on the pieces of armor. We talked about that. Some are on all the time. Others we put on as needed. And then we come to verse 18. And as you're putting on all the armor, you're praying at all times, in the spirit, with all prayer and supplication, to that end, keep alert, and with all perseverance, making supplication for all the saints. We'll try and get to half that verse today. It doesn't seem that Paul is adding prayer as another piece of the armor. It seems to be something separate from the armor he's already described. There's no mention of it covering the body. It's more in how you put on the armor that he's already given you. So what's the connection between prayer and putting on the armor of God? That's what we're going to look at today. The armor is given to us by God. We put it on by faith. The armor needs life to it. The armor underneath it needs power if we're to stand victorious on that last day. You know, ask this of yourself. Why is it in your own life that the enemy seems to get the victory more than you would like? He seems to get the upper hand in our life. Why is it that our Christian families sometimes are unraveling or in shambles? Why is it there are so many Christians that just seem to be going through the motion of Christianity? There seems to be much more behind it than that, going to church or occasionally reading their Bibles. Why is it you find yourself as a professing believer in Christ continually falling back again into sin over and over again? We're losing hope. We're forfeiting your assurance. I mean, in some ways it seems like we're black and blue from the enemy who's just working over us and seems to be getting the upper hand. Well, it could be. Because there are so few Christians today that are taking seriously the admonition of the Apostle Paul here in verse 18. That is to humbly come before the throne of grace and pray. Pray. Pray, he says. My prayerful desire, and I prayed about this desire all week, is that this morning that all of us would see the great necessity in our Christian life for prayer. God might point out prayerlessness in your life if you find it lacking. I'm not here to bring a guilt trip on any of us. I don't want to do that. I think the word of God is sufficient to bring us along to where he wants us to be. But he might help us see that we're limping along in our Christian life because we're not on our knees like our Lord was coming before the throne of grace. that he might make all of us desire to be passionately devoted to joyfully communing with our Heavenly Father through prayer. Before we discover some of Paul's practical instruction on prayer, let me just give you I guess it's an outline, at least it's kind of a stepping stone to where we're going to be going in this half of the passage or verse. But in verse 18, what you really have in verse 18, it's really a pregnant verse. It's pregnant in the sense that it really is rich in the doctrine of prayer. You want to know much about prayer? Just read verse 18. Most of what you need to know about prayer is in that one verse. We're going to look at the what, when, how, and the who of prayer this morning. what it is, see if we can come up with a definition, when we should pray, timing factor, how we should pray, and who we should pray to. Now quickly, let's start by asking ourselves, what is prayer? Let's see if we can define prayer. Now, I'm going to give a short definition, and as we look at the other points, it's going to kind of add more to our definition as we go through this verse. It's interesting, so in Edinburgh, this old city in Scotland, you've got the castle up on a hill overlooking the city, and you leave the castle and go across the bridge into the main city. You go a few blocks, and pretty soon you find yourselves at St. Giles Cathedral, where the 16th century Scottish preacher John Knox pastored. Beautiful cathedral. And John Knox is buried out in the parking lot. You have to know somebody who knows somebody to tell you what parking space he's underneath, where they're lined out. Because he didn't want a headstone over his grave. He just paved over it and put a public parking lot right over his burial site. But we know this. We know that John Knox is a gospel warrior in Edinburgh. He was a guy that you would see, he'd be a guy that would be dressed in the full armor of God. But he wouldn't be like those suits of armor up at the castle. They weren't empty and powerless and lifeless on the inside. He was instead full of power in his life and his ministry. I'm going to read you a definition by John Knox of prayer. Hang on the words as we go through it. It's about this line, the 18th point. Simply stated, what it means is, well, just listen carefully, and I'll give you the abbreviated answer afterwards. You know, these old guys, they have to take a lot of words to describe exactly what they want to say about prayer. Knox writes, who will pray must know and understand that prayer is an earnest and familiar talking with God. Here's the first part. What is prayer? It's not complicated. It's talking with God. To whom we declare our miseries, whose support and help we implore and desire in our adversities, and whom we laud and praise for our benefits received. And so we talk to God, As we talk to God, He is there to support and help us for our trials and adversities. We implore Him to help us. We also give laud and praise to Him. There is a sense of which we give praise to God as well as part of our prayer life. So the prayer contains the exposition of our sorrows, the desires of God's defense. And the praising of his magnificent name as the song of David clearly do teach. So there's a lot there. I mean, that's pretty theologically rich as far as a definition for prayer. If you wanted to abbreviate it for our modern minds, we'd say something like, prayer is your spiritual life. It's your spiritual breath as a Christian. It is joyfully and faithfully communing with your Heavenly Father. Now, when do you pray? When should you pray? Well, he goes, I'm going to say it at all times. Now, this command of God is given over and over again in the New Testament. How often do you pray? Pray always. Luke 18, 1, and he told them a parable to the effect that they ought to always pray and not to lose heart. 1 Thessalonians 5.17 says what? Pray without ceasing. Always pray. Prayer is simply a communion with God. Christian life is a life of prayer. It's breathing and it's communing with Him. One writer put it this way, it's a life of breathing through spiritual lungs. It's just part of our life, moment by moment. And so you take that view that it's breathing through spiritual lungs. Let me ask you in a physical sense, if you decided I was only going to breathe one day a week, and that was on Sunday morning between 10.30 and, say, noon, how long would you last? I mean, you wouldn't even get out the door before you'd be what? You'd be dead. Well, I'm only going to breathe before meals. And every time we have a meal, I'm going to breathe. You might last a little longer, but probably not much more. I'm going to breathe like the Muslims breathe. I'm going to breathe three times a day. That won't work physically, and it won't work spiritually as well. It doesn't mean that you are on your knees 24 hours a day. It doesn't mean that you're going to find some prayer meeting that you're going to go to and be at for the remaining 24 hours a day. It does not mean that you're to perpetually be on your knees wherever you are, praying to God. It doesn't mean that. But it does mean a continual, heartfelt, 24-7 communion with God while you're awake, continually depending upon Him for everything in your Christian life. There's another Scottish preacher, 17th century, Samuel Rutherford, was forbidden to preach and was banished from his home and his church and exiled to Scotland. Does that sound familiar with 21st century and what's going on today? Have you heard or read about any pastors today that have been chained up in hands and feet, taken out of their churches and put into jail? and can't see their families? Is that going on today? I know Mary knows it is because I get all your Facebook. What's his name? Pastor Coates. Find out what's going on today on Pastor Coates. This was happening back in the 1600s with Samuel Rutherford. He was exiled to the north of Scotland. He was one of these members of the Westminster Assembly, helped draft the Westminster Confession of Faith. He was rector of St. Andrews University. But he's described as being one of the most moving, effectual preachers of his day. And where does power come from? Men said of him that, quote, he is always praying. He so prayed for his people that he himself says, quote, there I wrestle with the angel and prove it. A man always in prayer. So I ask you, do you know that kind of communion with God? Are you aware of his presence in your life? And do you live that way moment by moment during the day? Communing with him constantly. And thirdly, how do we pray? And he gives a little insight there, because he adds, with all prayer and supplication. You pray with all prayer and supplication. Now, it's interesting, because sometimes we use the word prayer like we're asking God for things. Supplication simply means asking for specific things from God. But obviously, we see here that Paul is drawing a distinction between prayer and supplication. So I believe he's using prayer in a generic sense to talk about all kinds of prayers. And then he adds to that supplications, which are asking for specific requests of God. Philippians 4, 6, do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer, there it is again, and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God." So think of prayer here as generic kinds of prayer. It's not like going to a prayer meeting, that's the only kind he's talking about. It's not just asking for things, but really it includes praising God, as we saw with John Knox, praising God. It includes thanking God for all that He's done. It includes confessing our sins to God and also bringing our requests to God. All forms of communication with our Heavenly Father. Let me give you an illustration of how this might work its way out in the life of your family as you communicate daily with your spouse, or how you should, maybe I should say, communicate daily with your spouse. I mean, there isn't just one kind of communication when you commune with your husband or your wife. There's just all kinds of communications going on as you commune with each other. You might talk to your spouse on the telephone. You might drop them a note in the mail. You might write something on the mirror in the bathroom. You might have a formal meeting. You set the whole family down. We're going to have a meeting. It might be something like you want to get aside intimately and privately and speak about things of your heart just that relate to your spouse. You want to thank your spouse. You want to praise your spouse. You want to ask things of your spouse. So you have this general communion with your spouse. And even more so, your Heavenly Father. Your prayers can be formal or they can be informal. There's private prayers and public prayers. There's prayers where you go into your closet and you drop on your knees and you pray to God. Here's what we call ejaculatory prayers where you see something happening and you're driving in your car or you're walking down the street and all of a sudden something unexpected displays itself and then you want to spontaneously cry out to God and ask for his help. Never have that happen. during times of great need. You might be driving home, for example, and see an ambulance going, blasting through the intersection, you know, that they're going to pick somebody up, and you just offer up a prayer to God. Say, God, I don't know where that ambulance is going or what the situation is, but God, be merciful. Be merciful. That's an ejaculatory prayer. Or you're driving down the street, you see a friend that you know, and you know their struggles, you know their trials, you know the backstory of their life, And what do you do? When you drive by them, you know, they need Christ. And you're reminded of them, and right there, you lift up a little prayer as you're driving to God. I pray for this dear friend of mine. And Lord, today might be the day you would open up his eyes and see Jesus Christ. You know, there's prayers of groaning and sighing. Did you know that? Prayers when you can't form the words to speak. You don't know how to pray. You don't know what to pray for. You've been injured. You're sick. You can't find words. Romans 8.26 says, likewise, the Spirit The Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what to pray for, as we ought, but the Spirit himself, he intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words. You know, when Mary and I were going through our two-week bout with the virus, there were some times where I couldn't pray. I mean, I was just so weak. And my mind was so fogged and the temperature was so high that I thought about this verse. And I said, Lord, I just know that even though I can't formulate all that I want to say, I know that you're interceding on my behalf before the thrones of grace. There's public prayers. Do they still pray in Congress? I don't know. Maybe we don't have public prayers anymore. Do we still have prayers in the Senate and the House of Representatives? That'll probably change in 2021. But if not, normally, in a normal situation, there's public prayers that are offered before Congress or public meetings. There's family prayers where you gather the family together and you pray together with the children and the mom and dad together praying. There's corporate prayers with God's people the prayer meeting of the church. I mean, if you're not coming out on Wednesday, here's a good reason to do that. On Wednesdays, that's our prayer meeting, so to speak. Yes, we're learning about God to help us to know how to pray. And we want to come before the throne of grace corporately as a congregation. And to that, he adds supplications. That is, bring your petitions, bring your specific requests to God. We're going to see next time about interceding on behalf of others. We look at the last half of this verse. You see needs arising in your work week, during your daily life at school or wherever you are, pray. Let your requests be made known unto God. And then we want to look quickly at who we're to pray to. Well, remember we have a God who is a triune God, so every part of the Trinity, every person of the Trinity is involved in our salvation and our worship and our prayer life. All three persons of the Trinity are involved when you pray. We address our prayers to who? our Heavenly Father, and through the substitutionary work of Christ on the cross, through Christ in the Spirit or by the Spirit, where the spirit leads and directs and works in our hearts in such a way that we pray for things that are in accordance with the will of God and empowers our prayers. So each person of the Trinity is involved whenever you pray. Here he says, pray in the spirit. And this brings us to the heart, I believe, of true prayer. And here we find the very life, the spirit, the power of prayer and how important it is in putting on the whole armor of God. You see, it's not enough to pray. Now, I didn't take time this week to see if every religion in the world prays. I just kind of thought maybe they do. If not, I could at least probably be on pretty safe ground to say most of many religions pray. And so we know that most of those prayers are nothing but hot air and words that go up and they vaporize as they go on up. So it's not enough to pray. That's not what we're talking about, just praying, saying words. There's many religions and religious people who pray prayers. They're ineffectual, they're rote, they're routine, they're lifeless, they're powerless, they go up to the wrong God, they're misdirected. God doesn't hear their prayers and God does not respond. But as Christians, Paul directs us to pray this way, in the Spirit. He already said that in Ephesians 2.18, for through him we both have access in one spirit to the Father. Philippians 3.3. for we are the circumcised who worship by the Spirit of God and the glory in Christ Jesus and put no confidence in the flesh. So how do you pray in the Spirit? This is I think a very practical question for us. First of all we're talking little s or big S. You know, is this a small case S, your spirit, or is this the capital S, the Holy Spirit? And almost all commentators that I've consulted said this is the capital S. You say, well, can't you look in the Greek? No, because in the Greek, all the letters are capital. So that's not going to give you the answer. Prayer of the Christian. where you are led by the Holy Spirit in the things that you bring before the throne of grace. You see, it's the Spirit of God who indwells us, right, as believers in Christ, and He leads us, and He empowers us, and He directs our minds and our thinking to pray for those things that are in accordance with the absolute will of God. So if anything we ask in the name of Jesus Christ in the Spirit, in a true sense of the word will be answered. Every one of those prayers will be answered. Praying in the Spirit when the Holy Spirit creates the prayer within you according to the will of God. He lines your mind up to pray about the right things and the right desires that are within the will of the Father. A heart that is filled with the Spirit, who is walking in the Spirit, who is reading the Word of the Spirit, and who is close to God in the Spirit, is a person when they pray, are going to pray in the Spirit the things of God. Remember, the Holy Spirit indwells every Christian, and praying in the Spirit is allowing God Himself to direct your prayers, to empower your prayers. You know, a lot of Christians who pray just kind of make up words and they say words. A lot of times they say words that are formalistic. You know, there's a pattern they're following, which isn't totally wrong, but it is if you squeeze out the Spirit of God from that pattern. They'll pray in very rich Elizabethan English, you know, right out of the 1600s. And boy, it sounds so religious. That could be okay. That doesn't make it wrong. But you can sound very religious. You can use theological terminology. You can have prayers that are very ordered and structured according to a template and not have prayers that are being offered up in the spirit of God. And they're flat. You go nowhere. They're hollow. They're powerless. In fact, some of the best, I think, prayers are the ones that tend to be more common. They're common from the heart. That's where the Spirit of God is. That's who you are. He's within you, working out words that are common to you. Not someone else's words or someone else's thoughts. It's letting God lead and God direct your prayer life. You know, as your mind is being transformed and being renewed by the Word of God, then the Spirit of God is directing your thoughts to think about those things that are pleasing to the Father. You know, one way, this isn't the only way, but one way that I found in my own life that sometimes happens is when I become silent before the Word of God until the Spirit of God begins to take my mind and direct it in a way that I should be praying. I'm not talking about waiting for an audible voice from the Holy Spirit, but what I'm waiting for is the enlivening work of the Spirit in my mind to take the Word of God, which I've just read, and to cause it to be thought out and formulated in a way that allows me to understand the will of God to pray for. So when I'm praying in private, oftentimes I'll go to one of the psalms. I'll open up the Psalms and read through it. And then I'll pray through the psalm. You read a verse or two of the psalm, read it, and then just be quiet. The Spirit of God then, with that psalm, will work out a way in your heart and begin to see how you can express back a petition or a praise or a thanksgiving in your life in relationship to the Word. Or you can pray through the Lord's Prayer the same way. You can pray through the Lord's Prayer, taking it a petition at a time, and then stopping and being quiet. And allowing the Spirit of God then to interact with your heart in a way that then guides you to the next thing you pray for. So you pray, for example, our Father who art in heaven. You read that in your Bible. And you stop and you be quiet. And then I believe that the Holy Spirit, if He's in you, and the Word of God's coming to you, those two interact together. And then the Holy Spirit then interacts with the Word of God in your heart. And then, it doesn't take long, but sometimes it does take long, of just being quiet before the Lord, when He begins to flood your heart and flood your mind with lofty thoughts about God, or needs in your life that are lacking, or things that you're thankful for, that the Word of God is now speaking to you and allowing those things to be seen and heard and felt. And His glory then becomes on display, and you praise Him. So you might pray a prayer something like this. As you read through our Father who art in heaven, you're quiet before God. God, you are glorious. You've chosen to mask your glory this side of eternity. But that day is going to soon come when that mask is going to be pulled away. I want to see you face to face. Then the glory is going to radiate in all of your beauty and majesty. And so I praise you this day as my Heavenly Father. And I praise you as the one who, sitting on the throne, is there in all of your infinite glory. So you see how that works. You read a petition, you're quiet before the Spirit, and you can just go on. I cut it short, but your mind can take that one petition and go on. Or give us this day our daily bread. You stop and you're quiet before God. The spirit of God who's within you, so he begins to direct your thoughts. And what does he do? He begins to remind you, wow, give us this day our daily bread. That means everything comes from God. You, my full pantry, comes from God. And the son produced it. The sun shining again today, growing new crops today, mercies are being renewed today. And again, you're meeting my needs, Father. You begin to realize, as you're overwhelmed, you think, usually that'll just swell up to Thanksgiving. Thank you for your kind mercies today. You know, I know that my needs are being met, but I also know there's people down in Texas right now whose needs aren't being met. My prayer now goes out for those people who lack water, who lack food, that which I'm taking for granted. Father, meet their needs. And please, Father, don't let me take your mercies for granted. Forgive me where I've done that before in the past. Please, Father, meet the necessities of my life and the life of my family today. And suddenly you find yourself doing what? Communing with God. Communing with your Heavenly Father. This brings us to a vital point in prayer. Unless you pray in the Spirit, I don't think you're praying at all. If the Spirit of God isn't directing you in your prayer life, if you're just doing it all in the flesh yourself, you're not praying in the Spirit. You can pray all day and not pray in the Spirit. You can be on your knees and standing and sitting and raising your hands to heaven, and still never pray to God. Words are coming out, but not words of power, not words of life, but dead words. You can utter all the these and the thous you want in your prayer time. If you're not praying to the Spirit, you're not praying. And I say this because there really is no room for mechanical prayers inside of a mechanical body, which is called a suit of armor. I mean, we want the life of God in us, communing with God. So there's no room for rogue or heartless prayers, just uttering words. I mean, most of us, when we see other religions and other traditions that are out there, You know, we're quick to spot, oh, that's a rote prayer. Oh, there's a rote prayer. Oh, look what they're doing. That's a rote prayer. We fail to see that sometimes the way we pray falls into that very category. Rote, routine, heartless, lifeless, repetitious. We do so at home, we do so privately, we do so in the church. The man who passionately longed for such spirit-filled prayers was another man by the name of Henry Martin. Henry Martin was called the Apostle to India. He sailed to India in the early part of the 19th century, and these words he wrote in his diary described his prayer life. The ways of wisdom appear more sweet and reasonable than ever, he says. and the world more insipid and vexatious. The chief thing I mourn over is my want of power and the lack of fervor in my secret prayer life, especially when attempting to plead for the heathens' salvation. Warmth does not increase within me in proportion to my light." Think about that. The warmth of the Spirit of God working in my heart is out of proportion with the light that I'm taking in as I read the word, God help me. So one of the great dangers of our own personal prayer life is life that becomes mechanical or lifeless. I fear one of the missing elements that's present in many of our prayer meetings is the church. works. So the church gathers for a prayer meeting and someone's up front and says, does anyone have any prayer requests? And so, you know, hands go up here and there and people began to share their prayer requests. People are taking notes and writing them down. Now, it could be that many in that room, that prayer meeting, became grieved, burdened in their heart. The Spirit of God is working in a way they're grieved. where they're struggling with a loved one is without Christ. There's nothing more than they want is for that person to come to Christ. The kids are drifting away from the truth. And so the prayer request, what prayer request do you have? Well, I've got this aunt back in Minnesota and she has a bunion on her knee. Would you pray for Aunt Betty's bunion? And someone else, you know, the prayers go like that. Meanwhile, the heart of the people are grieving. The heart of the people see a need for the salvation of others. The Spirit of God is doing that in their heart, but it's not being articulated so that others can pray. Oh, we grieve the Spirit when we do that. I'm not saying there's not a time we pray for our Aunt Betty's wedding, but Maybe that should be added with all the other prayer requests that are from the heart, that are driven by the Spirit. If you would only be silent before God, he would begin to prompt you in how to pray. It's going to require us to be transparent in the church to be able to do that. Do you realize that? I mean, what keeps us from really asking for prayer requests or answering prayer requests that are deep in our hearts, that the Spirit of God is bringing. Because, well, I can't say that in front of the other people. We've got to be transparent if we're going to pray with one another. If you have need in your family, ask God's people to pray with you over that need. If you have friends, loved ones, children that are unconverted, you're lost, you're caught up in sin, it's heavy on your heart, you cry out to God as a church family, God, save my family. We're pleading with you. We're asking for the power from on high to do the work of conversion. Maybe forget about Aunt Betty's bunion for a few minutes while you cry out to God for the salvation of a soul. And I'll tell you what, God delights in hearing those kind of prayers because it's the third person of the Trinity that knows the heart of the Father, the first person of the Trinity. And the prayers that he's putting in your heart and formulating are the very prayers he wants you to pray. And as a church family, he wants the family to pray with you. Too often the Holy Spirit's urging is not even heard. And so we crowd out His quiet prompting in our hearts in a prayer meeting. Forget about being rejected. Forget about saying, I can't pray that in front of others. What will they think? No, what it'll do is spark others to pray in the same way. It'll add fervor to the prayer meeting. The one leading the prayer asks, what are your prayer requests? You just share it from your heart. What the Spirit of God is, is the directing He's doing in your heart. Let's be clear that there's nothing wrong with praying for Aunt Betty's bunion. Don't hear me wrongly there, but I think sometimes there's more pressing needs that are on our heart that we need to be more transparent and pray to God for. If you have great needs, the Spirit of God is prompting, pray. I believe this is one of the deadening agents of many of our prayer meetings. Believers gather, leaders ask for prayer requests, people are writing down the prayer requests, others are checking them off as the prayers are being prayed. And then we say amen, we leave home, and I don't know if the Holy Spirit had anything at all to do with our prayer meeting. You can pray with your mind and with words, but not with your heart. Not pray in the spirit. Have you ever experienced this kind of praying in the Spirit that I'm talking about? I'm not talking about speaking in tongues. That's not what I'm saying. I'm talking about the Spirit of God in us, leading us in our prayer, according to His direction and guidance and empowerment. I don't know if I've shared this with you before, but this is such a graphic example. If I do, I apologize. It just means you probably need to hear it again. I can remember one such prayer meeting, maybe two, but I'm going to share one. This is when I was a young seminarian and I was pastoring a church in the inner city in Los Angeles. And every Sunday night we had a prayer meeting at 7 o'clock. Usually we didn't know for sure whether the Holy Spirit was present or not, except we did know doctrinally that he was there. This one meeting, towards the very end of it, one of the men, somewhere in the back on his side, with heads bowed, said, Father, I have sinned against this brother over here by name. I have been in tears. He cried out to God, will you forgive me? God, would you forgive me? And he went on and he said, amen. And then tears began to come in other people's eyes as they heard that. It was such a tender, heartfelt, spirit-lent prayer request. But as he said amen, others began to pray. They didn't stay in their seat. We didn't have an altar or anything, but people just, for some reason, came forward. And they were kneeled all around the very front of the church in tears, crying out to God, verbally confessing their sins before one another. I've never experienced anything like that before. It wasn't planned, it wasn't scheduled. So one said amen, another one would pray. The meeting would normally end around eight o'clock, but this Holy Spirit had a different timetable that night. It was almost like in that room, time had suspended, and God had ushered us up into the eternal state. I heard little children praying, women praying, men praying, broken in their hearts, asking for forgiveness of sins. Then when the last amen, someone said amen, and there was no more, there was a holy hush that came over the congregation that remained there for I don't know how long. It was absolutely amazing. We all had tears in our eyes of joy. This is a prayer meeting that's being directed and led by the Spirit of God in our hearts. These are the kind of prayers that God delights in answering, forgiving sins. These are the kind of prayers that God himself not only delights in hearing, but answering. These are the kind of prayers that we should be praying without ceasing, always. You know, at the beginning of this message, I talked about the empty suits of armor there in Edinburgh. There was also, I mentioned earlier, a Scottish soldier by the name of John Knox. Talked about his church that was just down, big cathedral, just down the street. He was a great reformer who fought many of the spiritual battles of his day. Do you know what was going on back in his day? Have you ever heard of him? Are you going to talk about Mary, Queen of Scots? Are we going to talk about her and what was going on at that time? With that history, I mean, that was, you know, the English martyrs and the covenants that were up in Scotland. But Mary Queen of Scots, she was a wicked woman. She was a Roman Catholic, and she took on her mission to make sure that the Christians, the non-Catholics, were taken care of, removed. As Mary Queen of Scots, when she landed in the Scottish soil, John Knox fled, fearing for his life. Before long, he decided to come back to Scotland, And he wanted to have a personal interview with the Mary Queen of Scots. Now, she's burning people at the stake. You go, you read Fox's Book of Martyrs, you read all the chapters, and they're about all the people that died under her short rule. Now, she was only 20 years old when she was queen. And he came to talk to her and interview her with the intent of converting her to Christ, bringing the gospel to her. Now, that's pretty bold. And Mary then tried to convert him to go back to the Mother Church. And in fact, her motivation was backed up by bribes of political power. He just recant, go back to the Mother Church. But do you know what his most powerful weapon was in going face to face and head to head with Queen Mary of Scotland, Bloody Mary? Was his prayer life. In response to Knox's imprecatory prayers, Mary Queen of Scots said this, I fear the prayers of John Knox more than all the assembled armies of Europe. That's the power of God behind prayers, prayers that are offered up in the spirit of God. So I ask you as Christians, what is your greatest need this morning? Spirit-led need in your heart. What is the greatest spirit-led trial that you're going through right now? What is the spirit-led temptation that you are facing as you know that the enemy has come to you over and over and over again? What area of temptation is it that is plaguing you now as a believer? What's the greatest need of your family? What's the greatest need for your unconverted children that are living at home? What about your fractured relationship with your spouse? Or your finances that are all a wreck? The evil one, he's come, he's attacked with fiery darts. How do you remain standing? Well, we've seen the solution here. We see put on the whole armor of God, but do so with all prayer and praying in the Holy Spirit. Therein lies the power to defeat the enemy. Therein lies the power to defeat the evil one. You'll find in your bulletin a special invitation to join us this Wednesday and pray with us. May we pray in the spirit this Wednesday night. Bring your prayer requests with you. Let's bring the request of the church before the throne of grace. Let me close by reading Acts 4.16. Let us stand with confidence. draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in the time of need. Father, we close thanking you, Lord, again for meeting with us. Thank you for your spirit who indwells us. We pray for his ongoing work of directing our hearts, our minds, and our affections in prayers that bring glory and honor to you. Prayers offered at your will. May you do so with your very power from on high. In Jesus' name, amen.